The Day Everything Changed
by Tringapore
Summary: Our shipgirls heroes Shoukaku and Zuikaku will face their most daunting task yet when they face Abyssals teaming up with American ships for revenge. Will it end horribly for our heroes? Or will they overcome the threat? Who will win? Stick around to find out
1. Prologue

"Aircraft carrier Akagi and Battleship Nagato please report to the command center now!" The Admiral's voice boomed from the speakers. He sounded worried. At that instant I knew it wasn't going to be good.

Sorry I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Shoukaku and I'm the name ship of the Shoukaku class. I love the Admiral but I love my sister Zuikaku more. Even though she can be brash and impulsive sometimes, I still love her to bits. Anyways, let's continue on with the story.

"Hey Shoukaku-nee, let's go listen to what the Admiral is saying to Akagi and Nagato", Zuikaku suggested

"But Zuikaku, wouldn't that be rude?" I asked

"Come on Shoukaku-nee, a little peek won't hurt"' Zuikaku protested

"Fine but only for a while Zuikaku"' I sighed. My sister can be immature sometimes

As we put our ears on the door of the command center, the door suddenly opened. Zuikaku and I were taken aback and we fell on top of each other. Akagi and Nagato didn't say anything. It looked like they were in deep thought.

Finally Akagi and Nagato looked at us and said,"we are under attack. The abyssals have teamed up with the Americans and are heading towards the base as we speak. The Admral has already thought of a strategy and will make the announcement to attack soon."

I was stunned! Under attack? Abyssals? American ships? What exactly was going on here? This seemed almost a nightmare of some sort. To think that we are under attack by the abyssals. Well not really since the abbyssals always attack us. But American ships? How do they look like? How powerful are they? What weapons do they have? These questions flooded my mind as i thought of the situation. I turned and looked at Zuikaku. She was as stunned by me and was staring into deep space, most probably digesting what she just heard into her mind.

I quickly came to my senses. This isn't a time to be thinking and asking questions. We got to tell the other shipgirls i thought to myself. I immediately took Zuikaku's hand. She looked at me surprised. "Come on Zuikaku, we've got to tell the others", I said. She nodded and off we went.


	2. Chapter 1:Preparing for attack!

"Come on Zuikaku faster", i urged Zuikaku. We needed to hurry. From the looks of things there wasn't much time left till the abyssals and the Americans attacked.

After a while we finally made it to the square where everybody was gathered to see Naka's performance. Ah Naka, how should I describe her? Bubbly personality, always cheerful and dreams to be an idol. She's the idol of our naval base yep. No one could compare to her singing. Sadly, I had to interrupt her performance because this was too much of an emergency. I took the microphone and said:"The Admiral has told us that the abyssals and the Americans are coming here to attack us and that we must be prepared for an attack at any moment." Many people started to laugh. I can't blame them. We've always faced Abyssals in our battles and have always overcome them. But I think they were laughing because they heard Americans. They must have been thinking Americans? Attacking us? What reason do they have to attack us? Fortunately, Nagato came up the stage and affirmed that what I said was sadly true. She told the shipgirls to prepare for combat immediately. At this, everyone stopped laughing. In fact, their faces changed from laughter to upright horror.

Suddenly, out from the speakers came the Admiral's voice. "All ships prepare for combat. We are under attack I repeat, we are under attack! As soon as you're ready everyone set off to engage the enemy!"

Immediately everybody went off to prepare to sortie. Battleships were equipped with their big guns, destroyers armed with their torpedoes, cruisers brimming with guns and torpedoes and us aircraft carriers carrying our bow and our stack of arrows meant to be planes. All of us at the naval base stood at the ready, waiting for the Admiral's orders to depart to attack. All of us were nervous, not because of the abyssals but because of the Americans. We had not a single clue what the Americans were bringing with them. That was where intelligence came to play. Knowing your enemy, what he's equipped with, how many soldiers or in this case ships he has, and where was he. Unfortunately we had none of those intelligence. It was all too sudden. We didn't have time to sortie an intel fleet to get an idea of the enemy.

Finally at 15:00 hours, the order for attack was given. And so we went off, not knowing what will happen. All we had to do was to pray that the enemy wasn't strong and that luck was on our side.


	3. Chapter 2: Sortie! Enemy spotted!

15 minutes into our sortie and without an enemy in sight, we decided to launch scout planes to find out where the enemy was. As soon as we launched our scout plane, we saw dozens upon dozes of aircraft. Definitely not friendly aircraft(Abyssals)!

"Everyone in attack formation! Prepare for attack!", Nagato shouted. The 7 of us carriers and 5 light carriers immediately launched our planes to attack. It was a wild air battle. Planes shooting one another, it was an awesome sight to see. Out of nowhere more planes arrived. They seemed like American planes. AH yes, I remember now. F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs. I read it from a book before. They ripped our planes to shreds with their 6 50 cals and we were helpless to stop the turkey shoot. They were too superior to our planes.

While the air battle was raging, destroyer Fubuki shouted," there! behind the mist!" We all turned to see what was coming out of the midst. And we were horrified to what we saw. 10 Wo class aircraft carriers, 15 Nu class light carriers, 20 Ru-class battleships, 10 Ta class Battleships and dozens of cruisers(both light and heavy) and destroyers. They looked as if they were full of fury and out to sink us.

"Look, behind us!" Kongou exclaimed with horror. We turned back and saw American ships. 15 aircraft carriers, 30 light carriers, 40 battleships and nearly 100 cruisers and destroyers. This must be a nightmare, I thought. All of us stood rooted to the ground, or should I say sea. We were stunned. Both outnumbered and outgunned, what could we do?

"BOOM" an explosion ripped through the waters and the sky. We looked to where the sound was heard. It was destroyer Akatsuki, and she was heavily damaged. How? I thought. "BOOM!" another explosion was heard. This time Yuubari was heavily damaged. We were all perplexed. How could Akatsuki and Yuubari get heavily damaged all of a sudden? Unless... UNLESS. It finally dawned on me of the possibility that the enemies could have submarines.

"Everybody watch out! There could be submarines underwater!" I exclaimed.

The destroyers and light cruisers immediately got ready their depth charges, ready to sink any submarine that they could see.

As the enemies came closer and encircled us, I thought, this battle may be my last battle. And so too the other ships. And my beloved Zuikaku.


	4. Chapter 4: The Fight for our lives

The fighting was intense. Ships on both sides blasting each other with whatever they had. We had sunk most of the Abyssal ships already but suffered casualties of our own too. Destroyers Samidere, Tanikaze, Harusame and Kisaragi sunk while Shiratsuyu, Mutsuki, Inazuma and Akatsuki heavily damaged. Cruisers Takao, Chikuma, Aoba, Furutaka and Kiso sunk while Kitakami, Ooi, Isuzu damaged. Fortunately none of our battleships were sunk but Mutsu and Ise were damaged. Us carriers suffered the most casualties. Almost all of our light carriers were either sunk or damaged, with Zuiho the only light carrier still doing fine. Akagi and Soryu were mid-damaged.

Now that most of the abyssals were sunk we could turn our attention to the American ships. As I turned, i saw the American carrier USS Enterprise. Both of our eyes were grid-locked at each other. This was it! The one who managed to launch her plane first would win. It was either her or I that perished. Instinctively I held bow and arrow in my hand and she did the same too. Both of us fired off a wave of planes at the same time. As our planes approached each other they began firing a barrage of machine guns. For some reason my planes managed to destroy the majority of her planes(maybe she was using the older planes). The path was clear for my planes to attack her! As i waited for the bombs and torpedoes to drop, someone cried out "Shoukaku look out!" I turned my head to the left. I saw nothing. I only felt the pain in my body as bullets ripped through me. "AHHHHH!" I screamed in agony. My flight deck had been damaged.I couldn't launch my planes anymore! I was a sitting duck for any enemies that could see me!

"Shoukaku-nee!" Zuikaku shouted and came to me. "Are you okay? Who injured you? I'll definitely kill that person!" Zuikaku asked and shouted in anger.

"I'm ok Zuikaku. Just took a little bit of damage that's all." I reassured her. I don't like my sister to be worried for me.

"But... your flight deck is damaged and look at you, you're a mess. You can't carry on fighting" Zuikaku protested.

"it's ok Zuikaku. If I die it would be for the Admiral and for everybody else here. Especially you', i said to Zuikaku.

I turned to look at the Enterprise. She was as badly damaged as me. Most probably from my bombers, I thought. The Enterprise retreated to avoid being attacked again. However, her sister ships, Yorktown and Hornet, were still in the fight, as so were the majority of the American carriers. They looked at their damaged sister and then turned to look at me. Their eyes were filled with anger and hate. They wanted revenge for their damaged sister. They didn't just want to damage me more. They were all out to sink me! I said to Zuikaku," If I sink, just run! Run as far away as you can, and don't let them(the Americans) catch you."

"But Shoukaku-nee, I can't just let you sink and leave you behind. NO! I'll stand by you till the very last moment, till my very last breath", Zuikaku retorted.

I processed what she said to me in my mind. The thought of losing Zuikaku was too painful. But at the same time, she was so determined to stay with me. What should I do?

Finally after some thinking I said to Zuikaku,"Fine then Zuikaku. If you want to stay you can stay."

During that period of time, the Americans stung us. Hiei, Kirishima and Haruna were badly damaged. As were most of our ships. We were fighting a losing fight. Yet we couldn't retreat at the same time as we were surrounded. There was only one option. Fight till the last man.


	5. Chapter 5: Saved!

The situation was becoming more and more desperate by the minute. The Americans and the Abyssals, or should I say what was left of the abyssal since we sunk most of them already, were closing in. Half of our ships were either lost or too damaged to continue fighting. I shot another wave of planes at the enemy. The other carriers did the same. Our planes managed to sink 2 American battleships, 5 destroyers and damaged 2 carriers. However, we only had 1 more arrow(of planes) left before we could only fight with our bare fists(if that is even possible for a ship).

"BOOM!" an explosion shattered the air. I turned and look. Kaga had been sunk! From the corner of my eyes I saw the ship that most probably sunk her. It was the USS Yorktown! And with that we were left with just me, Zuikaku, Hiryu and Taiho that could still launch planes. But with only 1 wave of planes left, what could we possibly do? I looked. The American carriers were falling back, and the battleships were coming forward. This is not good, I thought. When all the battleships were aligned in one row, they let off a humongous blast of shells. I dodged the shells but Akagi and Soryu got hit and with that, they disappeared below the waves. Shit! This can't possibly be happening. We were getting destroyed by the Americans and the Abbysals.

"Everyone, form a defensive formation!' Nagato ordered. We did as she said. Defensive position was where we'd form a circle around us. Any enemy that we saw by ourselves the other person could also see. It was only a last resort. Normally we'd be attacking but in this scenario, we couldn't attack. We were on the defensive all the time. Unfortunately a weakness of the defensive formation was that we couldn't see any submarines that could be lurking underwater. Only the destroyers could detect them. That came to hurt us as most of our destroyers were damaged.

Suddenly, a splash of water occurred where Nagato was. When we turned around she was nowhere to be seen. She had been sunk by a submarine. More water explosions followed, and we were left with less and less ships(they had been sunk by submarines). The enemies closed in on us. The enemy carriers launched their planes and damaged all of us.

This was it! All hope was lost. There was no way we could defeat a fleet that was bigger and more technologically superior to us. I turned to Zuikaku. She was as badly damaged as me. As though she read my thoughts, she began to cry and hugged me tightly. Seeing her cry made me cry too. As the enemies came closer and closer, I closed my eyes. I waited for the inevitable to happen.

Suddenly from out of nowhere, planes started screaming in and cannon shots could be heard. Torpedoes cruised through the water and hit their mark(sunk a ship). I opened my eyes and was in shock. The enemy was in chaos! Ships began colliding with one another in the panic and confusion, ships were blown apart by bombs.

What was happening? I looked in every direction trying to spot the person responsible for saving our lives. I spotted a figure. It was the battleship Bismarck! And she was followed by her sister ship Tirpitz, the carrier Graf Zeppein, destroyers Z1 and Z3, and cruisers Prinz Eugen, the Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland. The Germans must have sent them, I thought.

The Americans and Abyssals looked at the German ships and decided to retreat. We were saved! Prinz Eugen immediately came up to me and greeted, "Guten tag. That was a close shave. If we had arrived any later you guys would've been sunk."

"How did you know that we were fighting?" I asked

"The Admiral(Karl Donitz) received reports that a fight was happening and immediately dispatched us to find out what was happening", Bismarck replied.

"Well in that case thank you," I said.

"Not a problem. Unfortunately we may have arrived a little late it seems. Sorry for your loss," Admiral Graf Spee said

"Oh, well, we are grateful enough that you came to our aid. It was a misfortune that so many of our precious ships sunk," I said sadly with my head hung low.

"Anyways, we better get going then before more enemies arrived. We got to create a plan to defeat the enemy. By the way your Admiral is at our naval base discussing with our Admiral on the next course of action ," Graf Zeppelin said in a worried tone.

"Ok lets!" Yamato replied.

And off we went, to the Fatherland(Germany) for repairs and to formulate a plan to defeat the Abyssals and Americans.


	6. Chapter 6: At the Fatherland

We arrived at the Fatherland later in that evening. It was so different from our naval base. For one thing, there were fewer surface ships than our navy. And the other thing was that there were more submarines. And when I mean more I mean a few hundred submarines.

"Come on let me show you to your rooms," Bismarck said.

Bismarck led us to our temporary accommodation. The room was similar to ours back at home.

"Enjoy your stay," Bismarck said with a smile before closing the door.

Even though I was damaged, I was too tired to go to the docks to repair. I just collapsed on the bed, exhausted from the battle. For the next few hours I slept like a pig. At about 18:00 hours I heard Prinz Eugen saying, "Dinner's ready. Come down to eat." I woke up. My stomach growled with hunger. Fortunately I woke up at the right time, I thought. I went down to the dining hall and my eyes widened with surprise. On the table was German and Japanese cuisine. Pork Knuckle, sausage, sauerkraut, roasted chicken, together with Japanese dishes like sushi and ramen. Bismarck greeted me and said, "Had a good sleep I suppose."

"Yea I did," I replied.

Once the table was filled with food we started to dig in. "Guten Appetit," The Germans said. I tasted the pork knuckles. The skin was so crispy and the meat melted in my mouth. I loved it! The sausages were good too. The spices were fragrant and the sausages were tender. However, I disliked sauerkraut. It was too sour for my liking. So I decided to stick to good old Japanese food for now. The food was delicious! I ate till my heart's content. By the time the meal was over I felt like I couldn't move an inch. I was that full. However I decided to take a stroll with Zuikaku before spending the night at the repair docks.

The night breeze was cooling and the temperature was just right. As I walked with Zuikaku staring at the night sky which was filled with the thousands of stars, I felt a sense of peace. Zuikaku saw that I was staring at the sky and asked, "Shoukaku-nee, what are you thinking about?"

"Ah, nothing much, just that I see how peaceful this place is and I kind of wish it was this peaceful back home," I replied.

"Oh, I see. Well maybe it'll be peaceful soon. Once we get rid of the abyssals once and for all and we defeat the Americans," Zuikaku replied with a sense of hope.

"Maybe. Maybe someday it will. But in the meantime, we've got to fight for the peace. We got to retake our seas from the abyssals and the Americans. Anyways Zuikaku, just look at us, we look like a mess," I said, staring at our torn and tattered clothes and our battle wounds. "Let's go to the docks and repair shall we Zuikaku?" I asked with a smile.

"Sure Shoukaku-nee," Zuikaku happily said.

And with that, we went to the repair docks to spend the night there.


	7. Chapter 7: Planning for counter-attack!

Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto and Karl Donitz were hot in discussion regarding the abyssal and the Americans. Both of them wanted to completely defeat the two enemies but knew that they were severely outnumbered in terms of both ships and resources. They needed a plan that could try to negate their weaknesses as best as it could. Hence, they spent hours and hours a day coming up with a suitable strategy to launch a counter-attack.

"Admiral Donitz, I suggest that we launch a surprise attack on the enemy's base," Admiral Yamamoto suggested.

"We could, but we must first find out where their base/bases is/are. If we don't, then our plan will be futile and we will be just wasting resources and maybe even ships," Admiral Donitz said.

"Agreed. That is why I suggest that we send out submarines as a reconnaissance team to find out where their bases are. After that, we can decide on the course of action," Admiral Yamamoto said.

"Fine then, in that case I'll send out 4 submarines. U-510, U511, U-160 and U-161 to locate the enemies' bases," Admiral Donitz said.

"We must also prepare the ships for combat immediately. Then, once we locate the enemies' bases we will launch an attack immediately," Admiral Yamamoto replied.

Admiral Karl Donitz agreed. At 17:00 hours, the 4 submarines were dispatched to find the enemies' base while an announcement was made to prepare for combat.


End file.
